This poem grabbed my heart and squeezed, hard.

My breathe caught and rare (for me) tears streamed as I listened to Kevin Kantor’s eloquent, powerful expression of the horrors of rape, and the incredibly painful aftermath when his rapist turned up in his Facebook feed.

“And now I know the wolf’s middle name and what he listens to on Spotify and the all too familiar company that he keeps. And he can no longer be a wolf. Or the nameless grave that I dig for myself. We have three mutual friends on Facebook and now it feels like they are holding the shovel.”  ~ Kevin Kantor

My stomach turned upside down for him, a lump in my throat.

This is the power of spoken word poetry—a form I have fallen in love with.

The sharp tang of pain, joy, or deep empathy, as we recognize through another’s voice and the tears in their eyes that they are speaking an important truth, is like nothing else.

Kevin Kantor’s words go straight for the jugular. His courage astounds me every time I watch it (and you, too, will watch it more than once).

Take a moment, watch and listen, and feel his story in your heart, his bravery in your mind, his pain in your bones.

~

Relephant: 

Of Love & OCD. {Beautiful Spoken Word Poetry}

~

Author: Keeley Milne

Editor: Caroline Beaton

Photo: Youtube